Ocean Colour Scene back in Brum

Apr 18 2008

Ocean Colour Scene, Birmingham Town Hall

WHEN Brit-Pop ruled the waves in the mid-nineties Ocean Colour Scene navigated choppy waters to major success.

While the band’s albums have steadily dropped off the radar after all these years they still generate plenty of interest as a packed gig last night testified.

It’s fitting the band should use their triumphant homecoming show in the beautifully restored Town Hall as the backdrop for a recorded DVD and it will certainly not be a waste of money when it hits shops later this year.

OCS launched into Robin Hood, which ends with an ironic nod to Brit-Pop contemporaries Oasis before a swaggering, latino infused Riverboat.

It was the band’s penultimate date in their April acoustic tour of England and Ireland and is a real celebration of the band with a tangible sense of civic pride among the gathered.

All through the set - a rousing Profit In Peace, a brilliantly sombre Big Star and a defiant Better Day - OCS showed their maturity and were hugely impressive.

They closed with Traveller’s Tune and perhaps their most famous single Day We Caught The Train which triggered a raucous sing-a-long and an air of summer time nostalgia for which OCS have always been famed.

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Paul Suart